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It's looking very tornadoey outside right now. The woods are full of the sound of cracking pine boughs. The sky is the color of an infected bruise.

365 Urban Species. #048: Sawtooth Grain Beetle

photo by cottonmanifesto

Urban species #048: Sawtooth grain beetle Oryzaephilus surinamensis

The food grain of the world, grown and then stored and then shipped and then stored again, has its own particular fauna. No one can yet say where these creatures originated, since the mixing of the products of agriculture began so long ago--long before anyone thought to wonder about the origin of species. The scientific name of the sawtooth grain beetle contains the name of an South American country because the first scientific description of this beetle (by Linnaeus, in the 18th century) came from a Surinamese specimen. The beetle is found wherever grain is stored, and probably has been for centuries.

The sawtooth grain beetle is minute: the size of the letter "l"on your screen. The yellow boulder in the above photograph is a tiny fragment of cracked corn. The beetle is unable to feed on unbroken grain; the grain must be broken, processed, or already infested with another insect (the Indian meal moth, for example) in order for the beetle to make use of it. Its closest non-pest relatives live under the bark of trees. The sawtooth shares their flattened body shape, and can enter sealed grain bags and boxes easily. Fortunately they float, and can be easily skimmed off of the top of the water you put your rice in, or your cereal milk.

The sawtooth gets its name from the points on its middle segment. This feature is not visible to the naked eye, but can be seen in the microscope photograph under the cut: ( click for microscope photo )